Comment by robotbikes

Signal is beholden to the whims of Google due to their reliance upon the google cloud messaging stack. All messages are delivered based upon something outside of their control (whether Google decides they have enough priority to wake the modem). If you are on your phone all the time and have signal open it is usually instantaneous but say your phone is usually dormant it can be hours before a notification pops up. I'm not sure how different the situation is on iOS or if this is even avoidable with the current mobile duopoly. I find that the unreliability of signal precludes exclusive use of it so I tend to route a lot of communication through SMS via signal or double send. This is not high security stuff. It does seem like a relic of our age that chat is considered the preeminent form of communication. I think long form and long lasting texts like e-mail are valuable but maybe I'm just long-winded.